“But you—I shouldn't have thought—” She paused, a little embarrassed.
“Yes?” he helped her. “That I was one of those who go to church, you mean?”
“Oh no!” she protested; but it was what she had meant.
“You are right,” he said, without heeding the protest, and his ugly but compellingly attractive face was turned to hers. “I'm not in the least a scoffer, though; pray believe that. It's just that I—” he hesitated. “Do you remember a little verse:
'Although I enter not,
Yet round about the spot
Sometimes I hover,
And at the sacred gate
With longing eyes I wait,
Expectant of her.'”
Her face flushed. “But,” she reverted, with naïveté, “you said you were going to church—”
“But because I knew you were one of the women who would be sure to go!” he said, positively.
She rebelled. “I don't look devotional at all!”
“But your eyes do,” he declared. “They're suggestive of cathedrals and beautiful dimness, and a voice going up and up, like the 'Lark' song of Schubert's, don't you know!”
“No, I don't!” she said, wilfully; but she was conscious of his eyes on her face, and angry that her cheeks flushed.